The following is an index of the chapters in the various manuals used by the Railroad Retirement Board in the processing of claims under either the Railroad Retirement or Railroad Unemployment Insurance Acts. The manuals are available here for download in pdf format. Printed copies of any portion of these manuals may be obtained by submitting a request in writing to:

The Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) Administrative Staff Manuals state only internal RRB guidance. It is not intended to, does not, and may not be relied upon to create any rights enforceable at law by any party in a civil or criminal action. Further, by posting the Administrative Staff Manuals, the RRB is not thereby limited from exercising its otherwise lawful prerogatives. If the content of the Administrative Staff Manuals conflicts with the Railroad Retirement Act (RRA) or Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act (RUIA), other Acts, another relevant statute, regulations, rulings, those authorities have priority over the Administrative Staff Manuals.

This section of the RRB website contains the public version of the RRB Administrative Staff Manuals. The Administrative Staff Manuals are the primary source of information used by RRB employees to process claims for railroad retirement, survivor, disability, Medicare, unemployment and sickness benefits under the RRA or RUIA. The public version of the Administrative Staff Manuals is identical to the version used by RRB employees except that it does not include internal data entry, personal identifiable information, sensitive content instructions or training materials, and some notes, sections or manuals, correspondence, forms, transmittals, bulletins, memoranda, screens, examples and/or samples.

Please note that the Administrative Staff Manuals are intended for RRB employees. The manuals may contain technical terms and instructions that will be unfamiliar to you. You may encounter difficulty in understanding these materials.

There is a normal time lag in updating the Administrative Staff Manuals to provide up-to-date information. Accordingly, there will be instances in which the procedures stated in the Administrative Staff Manuals are not up-to-date.

To view and download PDF documents, you need the free Acrobat Reader. We recommend using the latest version. Viewers with visual disabilities can go to Adobe's Access Website for tools and information that will help make PDF files accessible.

To view and download PDF documents, you need the free Acrobat Reader. We recommend using the latest version. Viewers with visual disabilities can go to Adobe's Access Website for tools and information that will help make PDF files accessible.